Birmingham Festival Theatre opened its 40th season with one for the guys and by the guys. “That Championship Season” reunited high-school basketball heroes and starred an all-male cast.

Now, it’s the women’s turn, and they take advantage of it with an often lovely production of “Quilters” that opened Thursday.

First produced at BFT in 1987, “Quilters” is a musical about women on the western frontier — their triumphs and tragedies all captured in the legacy quilt created by the matriarch of the clan.

Like the quilts at the center of it, the show is a patchwork of stories. Some are more effective than others, and the chronology of some of them can be confusing, but the overall effect is sweeping, including births, deaths, marriages, wildfires, epidemics, blizzards and much more. “Quilters” covers a lot of ground in its 2½ hours.

DETAILS

What: “Quilters”

Where: Birmingham Festival Theatre, 1901 1/2 11th Ave. South

When: Through Nov. 19

Bottom line: Review gets three out of five stars

Info: www.bftonline.org or 933-2383

The show is long — and a couple of times it feels long — and one might lose interest were it not for the delightful cast that director Sandra Taylor has assembled.

Some have great voices, others are better actresses, but the ensemble — Gaines Marsh Creager, Holly Croney Dikeman, Nancy Malone, Emily McLeod, Cari Gisler Oliver and Martha S. Summey — does a fine job of bringing their characters to life. Holding it all together is Carole Armistead as Sarah, whose legacy quilt is being constructed from the stories relayed on stage.

They’re all accompanied by an on-stage band, seven women playing instruments like the hammered dulcimer and banjo. The songs are nice, but not particularly memorable.

Another “star” of the show is the quilt that Camden’s Betty Kennedy has created for this production. It makes a dramatic entrance at the end of the show, filled with color and emotion. Suellen Wilkins’ period-appropriate costumes are a nice touch, too.

“Quilters” is a show that was done by theaters around the country in the 1980s, but it has been a little while since it’s been done here. The BFT crew does it proud.